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But this country has made no official move in the matter. The present activity is almost entirely the work of France. The diplomatic discussions were initiated by the French Government, and the speeches in the French Chamber and the discussions in the French press have come to Washington out of a clear sky.

The eagerness of the French Government to effect a settlement, and effect it now, raises certain questions. The responsible statesmen and financiers of France evidently think that they can secure a much more satisfactory arrangement now than five or ten years hence. Not impossibly they foresee a prosperous future for their country. If the settlement is postponed, therefore, the ability of France may become so apparent that the full measure of the bond may be exacted. If this is the real reason why the French are raising the question at this time, their manner of doing so has been most unfortunate.

It is somewhat incongruous that their requests for mitigation should take the form of more or less violent attacks on the United States and its part in the war. The tendency to hold this country responsible for all the misfortunes of Europe is not only one that is historically misplaced, but also one that does not soften the American heart toward its European creditors. Whatever nation, or nations, were responsible for the World War, certainly the United States was not. That conflagration was the result of the vices of Europe, in which this country had no part. Neither were the Allies fighting American battles nor saving this country from destruction. The course of events clearly demonstrated that the United States could have protected itself, even against a victorious Germany.? The constant statements in the French press that the money owed this country is a proper offset to the services performed by the Allies in saving this nation from a German onslaught are a perverted interpretation of events. The fact is, of course, that our intervention saved France from becoming a province of the German Empire.

Mr. Coolidge fortunately sees this mat

ter in the proper perspective, as he disclosed in his speech of welcome to the new French Ambassador-a speech that was almost a rebuke to France for the recent attacks on the United States by French statesmen and journalists. It was a plain statement that this government recognized no reason for gratitude to France, that any reason for gratitude had been compensated by American services to the French Republic, and that we recognized the existing debt as an obligation that must be paid. If the President's remarks seemed a little cruel, the provocation had been great, and the consequent clearing of the atmosphere that followed was an abundant justification.

The principle on which the French debt is to be paid remains the same. It is to be measured entirely by the French ability to pay. This country has no hope, or desire, to collect money that France does not possess. A commission could readily determine this capacity, and such a commission would probably discover many interesting facts. At least two thirds of the debt, for example, represents commodities-food, clothing, machinery-which we sent the French Government, and which that government resold to its own people at high prices. Much was heard, during the war, of the total destruction of the French spinning industry in the devastated region. Not so much has been heard of the fact that France had more spindles at work at the end of the war than at the beginning. It had built up this industry in other parts of the country with American money-money now included in the outstanding debt.

Since the Armistice, France has sold vast quantities of munitions to Roumania, Poland, and other countries-munitions originally paid for by American money and also included in this American debt. Evidently the whole subject needs careful analysis before its merits are determined. The Coolidge Administration i disposed to show France the utmost consideration and liberality, but it obviously believes that a somewhat different spirit

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Education or Culture to Be Sought in a Democracy?

on the part of the French people and government is necessary before the problem can be satisfactorily solved.

Shirt-Sleeves Diplomacy-European

Thad

Style

HERE was a time when Europe had much to say of the informality and rough-and-tumble methods of American diplomats-a criticism which most enlightened Americans admit was justified, at least to a degree. It is perhaps a further evidence of the "Americanization" of Europe, and thus, in a sense, a compliment, that the diplomatic manners of our worst period should recently have graced the chancelleries of the more sophisticated region.

After prolonged negotiations with the Allies of the late war, the United States was permitted to participate in German reparations under the Dawes plan to the extent of 21 per cent. The steadygoing, matter-of-fact American could see no particular graciousness in the European consent that we should collect damages to this moderate degree. Indeed, the point might be made that we had been rather generous ourselves in consenting to accept so small a payment. The attitude of Europe that we had no inherent right to compensation, but that alone of all the participants in the war we should ignore technicalities of this kind— was another betrayal of the European feeling that our proper rôle is that of benevolent uncle to the old world, that the United States is a kind of ancestral estate on which the hard pressed countries are expected to draw more or less at will-an attitude which in itself is the

to the same effect. There was an extremely audible chuckle that shrewd Uncle Sam had been outwitted, and really fooled, or bribed, into performing his duty. Even certain sections of the American press declared that we had at last become a member of the European concert though in a most undignified and humiliating manner.

The cold reason of Mr. Hughes and President Coolidge promptly disposed of this silly argument. The Dawes commission is an independent body; it has no dependence on the Versailles Treaty or the Reparations Commission, but operates with its own force and wisdom. It contains no "sanctions" in case Germany refuses to pay; in that event the nations involved merely get together and discuss the next move. Mr. Hughes is as keen a lawyer and possesses as fine an intellect as any now directing the foreign affairs of any European nation, and is not likely to be gulled in the way the dispatches indicated. His policy of assisting Europe in an informal and "unofficial" manner has already produced gratifying results, of which the Dawes plan is one.

European statesmen can make this policy difficult and even impossible. There is still a group of "irreconcilables" in the United States, led by Mr. Borah. The greatest mistake European journalists and statesmen can make is to play into the hands of these opponents by such an exhibition as followed the publication of our share in the reparations. That Europe quickly realized its mistake was evident by the haste with which it accepted the Washington version of this proceeding.

Education

greatest barrier to that sympathetic An Englishman Criticizes American understanding which is essential to the peace and prosperity of mankind. This, however, was not the worst.

At once the French and British press were filled with columns describing how our acceptance reversed the action of the Senate in rejecting the Versailles Treaty and made us partners in all that should be henceforth done in Europe. European statesmen made long speeches

M

R. HERBERT A. L. FISHER, formerly Minister of Education in Great Britain, is the latest distinguished Englishman to visit American schools and universities and to make public his views. His remarks are somewhat discursive and informal and occasionally amusing-as, for example, his

reference to co-education as attractive chiefly for matrimonial purposes. His main contentions, however, merely echo beliefs which many American educators have recently expressed. Mr. Fisher thinks that American primary education is the strongest part of our system. Neither England nor any other country has anything comparable to it. In the main, he finds our secondary schools and our universities rather superficial. He does not believe that the work they do ranks in the same class with that done in his own country.

With certain qualifications, most American educators have accepted these generalizations as fairly justified. One important omission is Mr. Fisher's failure to make any reference to the contributions of American universities to technical and professional education. On this ground the United States certainly can stand comparison with any other country. Our great technical and scientific schools have few, if any, counterparts in England

on the European continent. Our medical and law schools, and our scientific laboratories are institutions of which this country need not feel ashamed. The time has passed when Americans find it necessary to seek a medical education in Germany.

When it comes to the specific points which Mr. Fisher raises, however, there seems little ground for disagreement. The product of the American primary school, in intelligence, knowledge, and fitness for citizenship, is vastly superior to the product of public education in Great Britain. The product of the American college and university, in intellectual attainments and the thing usually referred to as "culture," is inferior to that of Oxford and of Cambridge.

Not only is this so, but it is inevitable that it should be so. So long as the United States maintains its present theory of higher education, so long will the average product of our university be rather raw and unfinished. The theory of British education is that it is something set aside for a selected class. The great

"public schools" and the universities are intended to turn the youth of British wealth and aristocracy into cultivated "gentlemen." Only a small minority of English boys ever have the opportunity to attend them. The whole educational system can therefore be adjusted to the capacities of this selected class. The American theory is that it is the business of the state to furnish the higher education to any boy or girl who wants it. Our high schools take in thousands where the English secondary schools take in dozens; our state universities absorb hundreds where the British universities absorb one or two.

Instead of a small group, representing essentially the same social environment, the same race, and a reasonably uniform mental capacity, as is the case in England, American universities receive a miscellaneous horde, representing all social classes, all kinds of social surroundings, all races, all religions, and all grades of native intelligence. Their attempts to adjust their efforts to this miscellaneous student body produce those incongruities that impress observers like Mr. Fisher. The courses must be so arranged as to accommodate the least able, which necessarily results in a general lowering of standards. This is the great evil of our secondary schools, and it exists also in our colleges, especially since the great stampede of American youth for university education began after the European War.

What is the remedy? The educational conceptions of our first great American educator and our first great democrat are worthy of consideration at this crisis. Thomas Jefferson insisted in education at public expense, and, as early as 1779, drew up a comprehensive plan for Virginia-a plan which, unfortunately for his state, was not adopted. This provided for the education, at public expense, of all boys and girls in the primary branches. Jefferson's outline also provided for secondary and university education, but to these higher branches every one was not to be admitted free. Selected pupils of the common schools,

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A Rigid Constitution That Has Become Flexible

who demonstrated "genius" and "good disposition," irrespective of birth and social standing, were to be sent to the secondary schools and trained at the cost of the taxpayer. From this group the most promising were to be chosen for education at the university-again at public expense.

The scheme was democratic in the best sense; not democratic in admitting every one to the advantages of the higher education, but democratic in its selection for this purpose of the "best minds," whether they were found in the plantation mansion or in the mountain hovel. It was his conception that the state owed a primary education to every boy and girl, and a secondary and university education to every boy who was exceptionally qualified to receive it. The application of this formula to our educational system would solve many of the problems, not only of the educational system itself, but also of the social and industrial structure.

A New Way to Defeat Constitutional

Amendments

RESENT indications point strongly

to the defeat of the child labor amendment. How much this failure is due to the inherent weaknesses of the measure itself, and how much to the extremely capable campaign waged against it, is not yet apparent. Yet its enemies, though they seem likely to defeat this latest attempt to change the Constitution, have themselves really added an amendment of their own-not the less effective because unwritten. The Constitution provides its own system of growth. After Congress has passed the amendment, then two thirds of the state legislatures, or of conventions called for this particular purpose, must ratify.

There is no provision for a popular vote. But why not take such a popular vote merely for the sake of sounding public opinion, and of informing legislators of the popular will? Such a vote, however, is purely informal; it has no binding force on the legislature; yet the conviction is unquestionably justified that

no legislature will adopt an amendment against which the state has voted its disapproval.

The belief is still general that the present prohibition law would never have been passed if the question had been submitted to a popular vote. Acting on this cue, the enemies of the most recently suggested change in the Constitution brought about a referendum in Massachusetts. The popular vote was 695,119 against and 247,221 in favor. Though this method of testing public sentiment can be defended, this Massachusetts proceeding was not entirely creditable. It is hard to believe that the question was fairly discussed. The opponents of the measure, led by the National Association of Manufacturers, had plenty of money to spend, while the advocates had practically nothing. Tons of "literature" against the amendment flooded the state, full page advertisements were published in the newspapers, the radio was used three times a week. There seems ground for the charge that misrepresentations were spread broadcast. The enemy asserted that the amendment originated in Soviet Russia. They assailed it as a plan to "nationalize the children"-to take them from their parents and to place them, for all purposes, under government control, thus adopting a well-known item in the socialistic program. They made a particular appeal to farmers; under the amendment they declared that boys would not be permitted to milk the cows or girls to help the mothers with the broom and dishes. They informed Roman Catholics, who cast 40 per cent. of the vote in Massachusetts, that the real intention of the amendment was to take the control of education from the states and give Congress the right to destroy parochial schools. The fact that Father John A. Ryan, Professor at the Catholic University of America, assisted in drafting the amendment and is to-day one of its strongest advocates, discloses the absurdity of this latter contention.

There are rational arguments against giving Congress power to "limit, regulate, and prohibit the labor of persons under

eighteen" years of age. It is another extension of Federal powers over the rights of the states; the failure of Federal prohibition is not a strong argument for the creation of another bureau to enforce Federal statutes; the possible prohibition of "child" labor up to the age of eighteen, when "persons" are hardly children, has alienated many who might otherwise have endorsed the change. The critics. of the amendment who urge these points of view are entitled to respect, and it is unfortunate that the measure cannot be argued on its merits.

The one evident fact, however, is that referenda, in future, will probably play an important part in all attempts to change the Constitution. The impression that the Constitution, as it stands, is difficult to amend, is clearly a fallacy. The Constitution has been amended four times in the last ten years. One way to make sure that changes should not be hastily made is perhaps the practice of a popular vote as a guidance to the ratifying bodies.

American can have some satisfaction, as he gazes at it, in the realization that this is something the Middle Ages could never have done-indeed, something that only an American could have done.

American architects assert, perhaps with undue boldness, that even in a matter so characteristically middle age as cathedrals, they can teach the old masters a few tricks. Perhaps not in delicacy of detail, in lace-like carvings, in rose windows, in all that fineness of execution that comes from the skilled hand of the individual craftsman and artist, but certainly in outline. The medieval architects were limited by the stone and wood and mortar that formed their materials. But the moderns have a new material— steel. With this they can form arches and curves and other new and beautiful architectural groupings entirely beyond the scope of the old-timers. After all, the first requisite of a cathedral is that it shall stand, but this is by no means the problem to American architects that it was to Michelangelo.

"Structural shapes," as catalogued by

Modernism and the Middle Ages the United States Steel Company, have

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Meet

OSSIBLY East and West shall never meet, but that it is entirely possible for modernism and the Middle Ages to touch elbows, recent events in New York have clearly shown. Ruskin pointed with scorn at America because it had no ruins; this may be one reason why this country is at least determined that it shall have cathedralscertainly the next best things. Moreover, we are going to have some fine ones. America has developed one art that makes us the envy of Europe-the art of building; up to the present time, however, this has been directed chiefly to commercial ends.

an ugly sound and are usually forbidding, but, designed by an artist, and hidden in a building by stone, they can become things of great beauty. Three great cathedrals are now under way in this country-one in New York, one in Washington, and one, for the Roman Catholic Church, in Baltimore. Their artistic worth will not be apparent until they are finished. The extent to which their architects have used the new resources in designing them likewise will not be known until then. But what the mediavalists could have done, by combining American building devices and materials. with their unparalleled gift for beauty, dazzles the imagination.

A

NEW interest has been aroused in

But some of these utilitarian buildings Poison Gas and the Rules of Warfare are things of great and delicate beauty. That form of aspiration inherent in American business is as majestically symbolized in the Woolworth Building as is the unquestioning faith of the Middle Ages in Amiens Cathedral. And the

poison gas as a consequence of more or less indefinite but extremely alarming reports of the secret activities of many nations in developing

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